Box Score HILO, Hawai'i — It took a half for Kayla Valentine and the Dominican University of California women's basketball team to get on track on Saturday in their Pacific West Conference game at the University of Hawai'i, Hilo.

Unfortunately, the Lady Penguins (4-21/3-12) couldn't recover from a frigid first-half start and, though outscoring Hilo 40-31 in the final 20 minutes, left with a 76-55 defeat.

The Vulcans (10-11/7-6), who entered the game last in the league in offense with a 53.5 per game average, produced a season-high output. They scored 45 points in the first half in building a 30-point lead. They reached their season's average with 17:11 left in the game when they held a 35-point lead.

But the Lady Penguins didn't give up. Valentine, a sophomore, scored seven points and Te Manu Whakataki "Taki" Te Koi, the team's lone senior, tallied five as Dominican suddenly reeled off 14 consecutive points and outplayed the Vulcans the rest of the way.

Valentine, after going 0-for-9 from the field in a scoreless first half, went 5-for-8 from the floor and 6-of-7 from the free throw line in the second half to finish with a team-high 16 points. She also had a team-best three assists, two steals, and no turnovers in 35 minutes.

Teammate Melissa Wise came off the bench to score 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting and Kimi Nakamura, after a slow start, added 10 points, two more than Te Koi. Redshirt freshman Lauren Hyatt contributed a game-high eight rebounds and six points.

Hilo made its first five shots to jump to a 10-0 lead before Wise netted Dominican's first field goal after eight straight misses. The Lady Penguins, in fact, made only two of their first 25 shots (eight percent) in the game and missed their first nine 3-point attempts against Hilo, the best 3-point field goal defensive team in the league.

By the time, Dominican finally found its shooting touch, the Vulcans were leading 28-4.

Wise connected on three of her first four shots for six points and Hyatt came off the bench to grab six rebounds in the first half but they couldn't keep pace with UHH, who netted 13 of its first 21 shots, a 61.9 shooting percentage.

Dominican finished the game by making 18 of its last 32 field goal tries (56 percent) against the second best defense in the league. The Lady Penguins also committed only 14 turnovers in the game, their second best effort in that statistical category this season.

The Lady Penguins return to the Conlan Center on Thursday, February 23 to host Hawai'i Pacific University in a “Play 4 Kay” breast cancer awareness game. The Penguin Student-Athlete Advisory Committee is selling pink t-shirts for that event, learn more here. Tipoff is at 5:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast at www.dominicanathletics.com/livevideo and http://radio.dominican.edu.